| 1. | (10 posts) | "Princess Mononoke" - Nebula Award Nominee |
| 2. | (2 posts) | Miyazaki Not Easing Off |
| 3. | (6 posts) | Paper Comb and Animation Techniques |
| 4. | (6 posts) | New "Castle of Cagliostro" R2 DVD Details |
| 5. | (9 posts) | Nausicaa Manga in Spanish |
| 6. | (19 posts) | Hello, I am Porco Rosso |
We looked at 118 posts by 59 different contributors.
Whoops, turns out the listserv week ends on Wednesday this month. Nonetheless, a healthy week on the MML.
While it didn't win an Academy Award, "Princess Mononoke" is up for a Nebula Award; Marc Hairston wrote, "For those outside of scifi, the Nebula Award is the science fiction award given out by the Science Fiction Writers of America so this has the reputation of being the more literary of the the scifi awards."
The sci-fi aspect puzzled Jorge, "I honestly don't have a clue about what Mononoke Hime has to do with science fiction."
Joe Monson responded, "Well, SFWA is actually the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, and the Nebula Award is open to works of fantasy (see rule #4). MH definitely qualifies as fantasy."
Alan Takahashi added, ""Science Fiction" is a bit of a misnomer. In popular (and Nebula and Hugo) use, it's used to cover any type of fantastic fiction. Some think that we should really be using "SF=Speculative Fiction"."
The inclusion of "South Park" in the nominees list drew murmurs from Joe, "It would be truly sad if the South Park script won. I'm surprised something like that even made the prelim ballot. (x.x)"
Dr. Elmo defended "South Park" and took a shot at Neil Gaiman, "South Park has Satan and a kid's ghost as major characters, and a plot which relies on some eschatology; it definitely qualifies as fantasy.
As for the MH script, Neil Gaiman's a darling-boy of the SF literary establishment. Regardless of the merits, the MH script will get votes.
Enrico Casarosa wondered, "I was wondering if there is any information (maybe in the Ghibli Diaries??) to the effect that MiyazakiSan is indeed directing Sen to Chihiro with a new "more hands off" style?. . . I couldn't help but wonder after watching the Making of Mononoke Hime ... and seeing him direct in his "total control way" ... ;)"
Tom Wilkes replied, "Going by the evidence in the NHK special about the making of _Sen_, it appears that Miyazaki-san is directing the new film in his usual "hands-on" style. ^_^" I guess old habits die hard.
Jeff Stetekluh posted, "I really like my Princess Mononoke DVD but I wish it had a director's commentary soundtrack. Happily we have the extended summary of "The Making of Mononoke Hime". Many thanks to Mikiyo HATTORI and Tom WILKES for this excellent summary! I am eagerly waiting for parts 2 and 3."
He also asked, "At summary time 1:33:10, "We see Miyazaki making a paper comb. Initially, we did not understand what Miyazaki was doing. He makes his paper comb in order to prepare for an upcoming TV interview..." I do not understand this at all. Is a paper comb something common in Japan like paper fans or the folded zigzagging paper chains? Why would a paper comb help Miyazaki prepare for an interview?"
Chi Chung Tse replied, "I watched the video, its looked more like a party trick Miya-san played for the camera crew. Miya-san and his assistant was trying hard not to laugh as he was folding the paper comb. It was hilarious.
Of cause the trick could be practical too, I had seen people did something similar in private but unlike Miya-san - They centainly are not brave enough to do it in front of the camera and million of viewers.
The following messages aren't too related, but what the heck, I'll use 'em anyways.
Chris Kuan questioned a scene from "Yamada-kun":
It is a side-on view, with rows of lettuces in the foreground, running "into" the frame towards the tractor, which is travelling across the frame.
Now, as the "camera" pans R-L to follow the tractor, the rows of lettuces change perspective accordingly. That is, the rows of lettuce appear to "move" as below:
Now, for me, this change occurred far too quickly, and appeared "unreal". . . This might be one of those times that Takahata could learn from Miyazaki and bend the rules of reality for a better-looking film.
. . . . . .
. . . -> . . .
. . . . . .
Ilan Nguyen replied, "This cut appears in a way such that you can not avoid to notice it, at least as a detail in the whole shot, but as an obvious one. Takahata has also used the same kind of cut in just one moment in "Pompoko". . . That part of the scene (the travelling showing ranges of books) has also been done through infographics. The technical choice is exactly the same in these two cuts, but in "Pompoko", it is shown in a way that does not make it obvious. That is probably the main difference between them. Regarding the difference explained above, it would be difficult to pretend that the actual obviousness of that lettuces' move (the will to give that conscious speed impact to the viewer) would not have been a totally assumed part of Takahata's choice, as a director."
Mike Arnold wrote, "I was reading Pia magazine today and came across an interesting article regarding the upcoming 3/7, Buena Vista Japan release of Cagliostro on DVD. . . according to the Pia article, storyboards for the entire film are included on the disc, timed and edited to fit with the soundtrack. In other words, you can watch the entire film in just storyboards."
Ilan Nguyen added, "Futabasha has published the "Cagliostro" e-konte, as one book, back in 1984 (IIRC), but it is out of print for years, and very difficult (and expensive) to find. Futabasha then included "parts" of that e-konte as a little bonus a more recent edition (a few years ago) of the "Cagliostro" anime comics, in four books (with a few pages at the end of each book). Miyazaki's e-konte usually have a strength that allows a lecture of such works as themselves, and not only as part of the film creation process."
A bit of bad news from FUKUMOTO Atsushi, "According to Ghibli's WWW page the release of Cagliostro DVD was delayed to April 26, 2001, "to achieve better picture quality". Two disks, 4700yen before tax."
In a rash of conicidences, April 26 is also the birthday of:
Strange, ne?
Nausicaa in Spanish? Jorge says yes (with a maybe), "After years of rumors which never wanted to vanish, it is very very probable a Spanish editorial will release Nausicaa the manga in Spanish. . . the reading directions will not be mirrored, that is, page and panels will go from right to left, supposedly because of impossitions of the Japanese rightholders. . . . I might (or might not) have access to the full Spanish translation of the first book, so if you think there is any possible conflicting mistranslation in it I could point them out, do not doubt to tell me, but I do not really know at what phase the publishing is (it might be already printed, I have no idea), or if they would listen to me at all (although it is quite probable).
In a personal side, i find it stupid to retain the Japanese reading way. I can only find an interest in "retain the original spirit" as a reason behing it, and honestly, I find it quite futile after translating dozens of pages to another language with inevitably changing to a certain degree their meaning.
Lee Johnson posted a succinct reply, "Mirror an image and the image is changed, it is as simple as that."
Bruce Greenwood agreed with Jorge, "Not mirroring the images does little to "retain the original spirit" if a translation has already been made. I.e the image has already been changed. Mirrored pages is how 99.9% of all english language manga is done."
Alan Takahashi countered with, "I've been recently reading the Viz version of "Inuyasha". When I saw an anime episode, I kept noticing that all of the anime scenes were "flipped"...it kept throwing me off. In this case, the anime was closely following the manga so the difference was noticed."
Julio Gea-Banacloche went back to the original thread (Nausicaa in Spanish, remember?), "Do you mean that you might be able to post the translation, or send it to somebody who might want to check it out? If so, I volunteer!. . . I have already read the whole manga in Japanese once, and I'm currently reading it again, so I'm sure I'd have no trouble spotting anything that doesn't "sound" right."
Not quite according to Jorge, "Neither. I meant simply I will probably be able to read the translation before it is published, and that maybe some of you wanted to "guess" some particular things, that could easyly be mistranslated. I doubt I am allowed to post it somewhere for people to comment, but I'll suggest it."
Julio replied, "Maybe they would still let you send it privately to a couple of people (assuming it is in electronic form, of course). . . I could look at the Viz version and see where I don't like their adaptation, but it would be mostly a matter of disagreement with their stylistic choices ("sea of corruption", "wormhandlers", "horseclaw"...) than a matter of them actually getting something *wrong*. . . there may be something worth pointing out to the people making the adaptation anyway. Miyazaki, especially in the first few volumes of the manga, uses word ballons in somewhat unconventional ways sometimes. . .
Sometimes the results can be *really* confusing, even to a Japanese reader. In "Naushika kaidoku", the author, Inaba Shin-ichiro, discusses the conversation between Nausicaa and Asbel towards the end of the first volume. There is a crucial phrase ("A dead world on which not even insects can live is useless, even if it has been cleansed (made pretty, straightened out)") which, as Inaba-san points out, it's unclear, from the original, whether it is spoken by Nausicaa or Asbel, or in fact whether it is spoken at all or only thought.
Julio discussed several other ballon problems in his post.
Charlie Tangora added, "the whole "younger brother emperor"/"younger brother of the emperor" thing comes to mind." So confusing, in fact, that it has a section in the Nausicaa FAQ.
It started out as Julio Gea-Banacloche "hello" message, then mutated into a discussion of "Porco Rosso", awesome! After a positive comment about the film from Robin Cassady, Julio wrote, "It's actually nice to hear something so positive about "Porco Rosso", which I had some misgivings about--perhaps because of Miyazaki's own somewhat self-deprecating attitude towards it. ("A film for bored businessmen to watch on an airplane trip", or something like that, right? But I guess Miyazaki can be much too self-deprecating at times...)"
Chris Meadows remarked, "The funny thing is, at least on American airlines, Porco Rosso would be almost totally unsuitable for showing in an airplane!. . . when you're doing an edit for airlines, you can't include _any_ scenes of bad stuff happening to airplanes--from Goldeneye, they had to cut the scenes of the Russian fighters crashing. . . So in Porco Rosso, we'd have a whole bunch of aerial dogfights that end somewhere before the first shot strikes home. :)"
But the power of Miyazaki overcame the airplane fear, Ryoko Toyama explained, "From the very early point of the project, Porco Rosso was planned to be screened on Japan Airline (JAL). JAL was one of the investors of the film. In very early stage, Miyazaki-San told JAL that there will be some plane crashing scenes, and JAL accepted it. I guess that you can't really pass up an opportunity to show a Miyazaki film to your passengers earlier than anyone else in Japan"
She also wrote about the story behind the story, "Porco Rosso is really a film about Miyazaki-San himself - a disillusioned middle-aged man. I think that the Yom interview at the interview page of Nausicaa.net has some reference to it."
Charlie Tangora wrote, "Porco is the perfect film to watch when you're feeling swamped with work, exhausted, and depressed. It's an extraordinarily uplifting film, even more so because it has moments of grief and poignancy rather than the pure unabashed cheerfulness of, say, Totoro. It will leave you happy, refreshed and ready to face the grind again. I watch it twice a year, always during final exams."
Representing the target audience, Alan Takahashi added, "I saw "The Crimson Pig" on a JAL flight during its run there. As I remember, JAL made a very BIG deal of it with the flight attendant making a 2 minute speech before the movie...first in Japanese, then in heavily accented English and some presents were handed out.
How many times has THAT happened for an in-flight movie? :-)
. . .
Oh...forgot to give my opinion. I liked it quite a lot. Despite the fact that Porco is a pig, this was really about WWI flying aces and the changing world that they were in. I consider it more of an adult adventure movie than anything else.
Frederic Goetzinger posted some "Yamada-kun" news from France. Toru KUMAGAI noted that "Princess Mononoke" will appear in Melbourne (Australia) in April. Kick it with Deborah Goldsmith in Tokyo during MacWorld. Cynthia noticed that the "Sen" trailer received mention over at AWN. Ilan Nguyen posted the definite rebuttal to linking Miyazaki with "Ulysses 31". Kate Butler passed along the "Sen" CD info she received from CD Japan. Rebecca Ballard spotted some Kiki fan art. A funny "Yamada-kun" strip about "Mononoke Hime". How to report piracy of Studio Ghibli goods to Disney. Help Hana! What not to do on a mailing list.
That's all he wrote.